Requirement (c) was for four marks and asked candidates to recommend the procedures to be used in performing a forensic investigation. This was in relation to alleged bribery, whereby members of the Group’s sales team were suspected of making payments to customers in order to secure contracts.

Answers to this requirement were weak. Many candidates gave no procedures at all, therefore not answering the question set, and instead described agreeing the scope of the work or whether the investigation could be performed for ethical reasons.

Other candidates gave broad statements instead of procedures, such as “quantify the loss” without explaining how this could be done, or “interview the suspects” without saying what the purpose of this interview would be.

To comment generally on the performance on Question Three, it was quite clear that many candidates had chosen to attempt this option question because they had read the relevant article on professional scepticism, but that they had very limited knowledge on either impairment audit issues or on forensic investigation procedures.

To improve exam technique, candidates should ensure that they can have a good attempt at all requirements of a question before selecting that question in the exam. The UK and Irish adapted papers had a slightly different format, but this did not seem to have any impact on candidates’ performance in any part of the question.